You know how it goes: "All your base are belong to us. You have no chance to survive make your time." It's from the poorly-translated introduction to an obscure Japanese video game called Zero Wing. This handful of mangled English phrases became an Internet sensation a couple of years ago and references to it still pop up occasionally. (It even made it onto Futurama.)
Unfortunately the police in Sturgis, Michigan were not in on the joke and arrested seven young men for posting signs containing these phrases, believing it was a terrorist threat. Sturgis's chief of police says this is "no joking matter." The seven are due in court April 17 on a charge of disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor. Bet those seven guys are glad they didn't use another Zero Wing phrase, "someone set up us the bomb," in their April Fool's prank.
Maybe they should play the video in court!
Well, one good thing I note from little portents such as the response by police and prosecutors to this modern reincarnation of Zero Wing in the hands of some teen-agers:
Political correctness has swung over to back right-think rather than left-think. And that is something that old elephants like me, with long and bitter memories, have been awaiting for a long, long time. So in some small spiteful way, I like it.
When the Americans from Portland, Maine to San Diego, California mass-trash Dixie Chicks CDs after their lead bitch denounced Bush from a foreign country, I like it.
When lardass Michael Moore waddles off the stage at the annual Academy Awards show to a chorus or loud catcalling after denouncing his own country, I like it. Fact is, I am sorry he did not trip on the stairs, fall, and break his neck.
When Peter Arnett gets fired from his American reporting job and Geraldo Rivera gets removed from the front lines by the US Department of Defense, for broadcasts deleterious to this country's military campaign in Iraq, I like it.
When a professor at Columbia University has to disappear from his classes and go in hiding because of his remarks -- apparently wishing this country's defeat in Iraq -- I like it.
In fact, I have been waiting for all of now-perceptible change in the overall tone of American opinion for 42 years. Ever since the last Eisenhower-Nixon administration.
Any time now, not a few of these leftist bastards will be departing northward and trying to freeload in Canada. Like the draft-dodgers of the 1960s.
I like it.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Theres a difference though since we're holding up their rights to say whatever the hell they want we're just calling them jerks and refusing to apologize to 'em.
One thing in all this is certain. The Sturgis Police Department will get their disorderly conduct charge, even if it is the lowest misdemeanor after a jay walking ticket. After all this publicity, they must save some face. They WILL get their conviction. They have too much invested to not do so.
I think what these kids did was pretty stupid. Considering what's going on in the world and the fact that the vast majority of people don't know what Zero Wing is, they should have expected as much. Clever yes...but dumb
shees...I wonder what would have been the reaction had they used *MY* version of that phrase :
ALL YOUR BLOGS ARE BELONG TO US!!
Or worse yet, 'all your media are blog to us'...
Methinks the Sturgis police are not focusing on the necessary needs of the community.
They should have said something safer, like "Do not play the ping pong with me, little girl!"